Thursday, November 16, 2006

Thursday Miscellany - Bigger, Longer and Uncut!

1. So, there's this Canadian Blog Awards thing going on, right? And, like, a whole bunch of the Canadian bloggers that I love are nominated. So, as it happens, am I.

You see the problem, right? It's not so much that I'm nominated against some of my favourite people (I have no problem voting for someone other than myself), but that they're all nominated against each other. Who do I vote for? One can vote every day, so I could simply vote for different people in different categories, except that that really just undermines the whole exercise, if I'm just scattering votes around in a frenzy of desperate love. And if I'm not just going to parcel out my votes on some vague principle of amicable equity, how do I choose who to vote for? What does 'best' really mean, anyway, when applied to blogs? Funniest? Best pictures? Most tear-jerking? Most prolific? Most likely to buy me presents?

Head. Hurting.

Then there's the whole problem of being nominated in two categories myself. There's a reason why I'm a political theorist, and not a politician: I can't do it, politics-on-the-ground. Hate it. LOATHE it. I simply cannot campaign for myself. Which is exactly what they expect you to do with these awards: ask people to vote for you. Ask people to vote for you EVERY DAY. Ask your friends, blog-neighbours and total strangers to go to the site, place some votes, and then come back and do it again every day until voting ends.

This makes me very uncomfortable. In part because, as I said above, there are so many other great bloggers that you should also be voting for, should you feel inclined to wander over to the voting area. And in part because I can't really give you any good reason to vote for me (beyond appealing to your pity, that is. What if I were to end up the sorry blogger with ONE VOTE - my own, lodged on the one day that it occured to me to go vote for myself?) (I want no backtalk on this in comments, do you hear?) There is just so much wonderful, wonderful writing out there, and such variety, in our humble Canadian corner of the blogosphere, that it seems impossible, to me, that I could make any claim to being 'best.' Seriously. So, having no platform to campaign upon, I will simply abstain from campaigning.

(HBM has no formal affiliation with Mothers Against Canada And Awards That Give Her Bad Mother A Headache, aka MACAATGHBMAH, and does not approve this message.)

I will, however, encourage you to go and visit the site and tour the great Canadian blogs that they have listed there. Click around, check out the landscape, quaff some virtual maple syrup. You'll like it, I promise. We're good people, we Canadians. Check us out.*

2. Speaking of checking out Canada, why not visit the newly refurbished MommyBlogsToronto site? I warn you, though - it's gonna make you want to move here.

**Or, you could get drunk and write a nasty letter to the mother-hating anti-boob fascists at Delta. Or, if you are too drunk to write a coherent letter, just go sign this. It's probably a better use of your political energies than the Canadian Blog Awards.

OK. You can now go back to making South Park caricatures of yourself...

No need to campaign. We love your baby, even when she is a blur running from hither to yon. You have the nifty basement, for sneaking cigaretttes and wine coolers. You make us feel at home and less alone. We would tell you if we screwed up or dyed our hair pink and it turned out PINK. You rock.

I chose my five favourite blogs in the categories where I love Everybody and I'm rotating voting. I'm showing up at my neighbour's house to cast extra ballots. I don't mind embarrassing myself because you guys are worth it!

Now where do I campaign to get your SP characters added in to the show?

my husband made south park characters for all of us a while back. i found mine grossly unflattering, but i have to say, his looks exactly like him, and he agrees. so does my son's. i'm surrounded by dudes with big round heads.

My SP caricature was brutally honest a depiction of myself and not-so-flattering. And I was annoyed with my husband for not being able to make one that accurately represented him. He told me it wouldn't work b/c he's not "as round" as I am. The worst part is that he's right.

OMG that Delta airlines thing is absolutely outrageous. Blanket be damned. The way the seats are squashed all together on planes these days, the Affronted Mama would've likely not had room to wedge a blanket between her baby's head and the seatback in front of her. Who in the hell except the flight attendant could even SEE these people? How absurd! How humiliating! I'm totally appalled.